COUNTRY LIFE
A Galloping Season This May Whitsuntide comes at the most gorgeous moment of the year. Spring has galloped into summer. The ash (and acacia) is hurrying to catch up the oak, and the grass to make ready for the reaper, and spring-sown grains have spurted beyond hope. It rarely happens that trees and bushes thicken their leafage so rapidly. It is proving, against general anticipation, an exceptional year for both our home butterflies and some immi- grant butterflies, as well as for birds from overseas. Was there ever such a wholesale appearance of tortoise-shell butterflies, though some observers note the complete absence of the Comma? Pairs of nightingales, so far as my experience goes, have settled down in all their expected haunts and chiff-chaffs are as common as sparrows. My bees were making honey at a great pace even before the honey-flow that comes with the opening of the apple- blossom. The few game-preservers that are left are congratu- lating themselves on one of the most promising nesting periods of their memory among both pheasants and partridges.
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